


Summer

by cartographicalspine



Series: Seasons [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Children, Day At The Beach, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 07:48:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15990824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartographicalspine/pseuds/cartographicalspine
Summary: The Ostwick sea beneath the tides is a deep abyssal blue and green.Part of a collection of themed stories about my Dragon Age OCs.





	Summer

**Author's Note:**

> A story about my three Trevelyan kids, small and lonely cousins who find friendship in each other and the sea.

 

The steps going down the seawall are slippery enough that Marlise has to catch Mack’s arm more than once, and Erzi doesn’t stop clinging to them until they’ve made it to the beach proper. His legs are still a jelly-ish mess as he sprawls on the blanket they spread haphazardly, but he’s not long in taking off for the rocky tide pools to explore, leaving his older cousins to chase after him with matched laughter and less-matched calls for caution.

There, he crawls the rocks and peers deep into green glistening pools like reflections of his own eyes, pointing out tiny little crabs and insects and fishes caught between tides. He works his mouth around their names—stutter mostly a soft echo in his voice—and even gives his finest attempt at their long, formal versions...with plenty of Mack’s help, of course.

After sputtering his way through his favorite feathery algae, Erzi sits in Marlise’s lap and happily busies himself with the sandwiches they brought to split between them. His cousins finish faster than he does, too caught up in the dark, savory jam to keep up with them.

Cheeks crammed and sticky, he giggles at Mack’s attempt to build a castle in the sand, and eventually Marlise comes to fortify it with a moat and some ramparts. It collapses halfway through to the tide, so they take to the jetty to watch the boats bob in the water for a while as the sun rides over the city skyline. Most of the spots are empty, moorings loosed and wrapped around their posts along the walkway, but turning back they find the little sailing boat they keep in a hidden alcove and climb in.

They stick to shore and their sheltered waters, following the currents that they’ve committed to memory, cresting waves and cleaving the water, collapsing on their favorite sandbar and panting with breathless laughter.

Marlise finds her legs first, tying her skirts up at her knees and drawing out her practice sword to carve elegant, precise lines in the air, _sha-sha! sha!_ for Mack and Erzi's amusement. She dances, showing off the skill she’s worked so hard on, as much as any tourney competitor. The sun shines off the sea, bright and hot as Mack gives up after the fifth round she’s won, and the breeze over the waves is cool and welcome on their sweat-damp skin.

Then, Erzi drags them to the water. “In, _in!”_ he insists, tugging at Marlise’s arm with more strength than seems possible in such a tiny frame. So in they go, slinking out of stiff sleeves and shirts, kicking off breeches and skirts and so many layers of ruffled nonsense. They'll never find the pair for Erzi's socks or get the sand out of these particular shoes again but that's for later, for home and disapproving parents. Now, they follow each other into the sea.

Erzi's kicks are stronger now, proving doubt and uncertainty wrong with his will, though Marlise has to remind him to kick the _water_ and not her or Mack, and then they dive down into the blue-green deeps.

Here, Erzi’s eyes are wider than anything, like the entire ocean is in them. He points at the schools of silvery fishes as they weave between ropey, colorful strings of kelp, and if he could breathe he’d most certainly be yelling right now. The thought is enough to make Marlise bite her lip against a smile. They trail the currents, looking down into the abyss and the half-hidden ruins and wreckage encrusted in emerald green.

It isn’t very long before they have to turn their faces to the glimmering white light above them, Erzi’s hands in theirs. He screams a wordless whoop as they break the surface, startling the gulls settled on the rim of their boat. “I-I want to go again!”

Marlise can endure the longest, and Mack can dive the deepest, but Erzi will not quit until they do first. So they go again and again, watching closely as he wavers and slows. When he can do little else but float, they drag themselves back onto the sandbar and let him follow suit. He’s a soppy mess climbing all over them, his heart a rabbit-quick hammering as he collapses and curls up against them.

“You’re a mess,” Marlise says, throwing back her curtain of hair and wincing as her soaked curls snag in the seaweed. “You’re too much, little heart. I’m tired out.”

“I think I’ll sleep,” Mack announces, sharing a knowing grin with her over Erzi’s head. “Will you, dear love? You should because I will.”

They doze, they must have, because the sun is dipping now and there is Uncle’s boat rocking nearby, watchful and vigilant as always. That’s not the surprise. Erzi is, quiet and not mumbling in his sleep. No nightmares like the ones that drove them here in the first place. Marlise gently brushes his curls from his face, stiff and tangled with dried salt and sand. Her own must be as bad, and Mack has fared no better.

He’s on the left, tracing patterns in the sand around Erzi’s dominant hand, little rays like the sun, and he gives Marlise a smile still shaking off the last of sleep, coming alive again in the sun.

They lie back as the gulls scream overhead, and Mack mutters something quietly about their weird, wheeling little flight patterns, and Marlise listens carefully as best as she can. Their conversation meanders into the peculiar habits of birds and then into Aunt Lucille’s hilarious new hat from Orlais. They’re still laughing about tail feathers when Erzi wakes, bright-eyed and wondering at the huge boat sitting across the way. Seeing his excitement at the billowing sails in the wind gives them the grandest idea yet.

Their uncle’s crew hollers at them as they race away in their tiny dinghy, working in tandem to catch the right winds back to the jetty, back home. Mack lets his lines go slack and tosses Marlise the right ones to tighten, and they skate, careening a sharp path across the water to the sound of their shrieks mixing with Erzi’s as he clings to the prow. The wind wounds their hair and tears Marlise’s hat from her head, the screams in their throats leave them sore for days, and the scolding they get when they’ve returned to shore and sand is blistering as the sun. But it’s worth it for the sight of the blinding horizon, for the brightness dancing in their eyes and the churning, roaring waves gleaming with light beneath water.  



End file.
